The ever present notions of beliefs dictated within white Australian society has led to the continuous stereotyping of Indigenous Australians. As a consequence of such stereotyping, many Indigenous Australians have been portrayed negatively within many media outlets and literary texts. Carefully constructing texts, authors have designed particular texts to encourage readers to endorse their perspectives and attitudes, and to engage sympathetically with the stimulus. These forms of devices have often positioned audiences to identify Indigenous Australian stereotypes within their own community. These contrasting depictions within the media and other literary forms creates a distortion within modern Australian society. The four texts: John Danalis’ Riding the black cockatoo, ABC's news article on a racially profiled Aboriginal boy, Gary Foley’s Racist Nation and, Oodgeroo Noonucaal’s All One Race simultaneously corroborate to share common similarities in expressing the negative ideologies of White Australians and positioning the audience to feel empathetic towards the Indigenous race.
John Danalis' 'Riding the Black Cockatoo' (appendix 1) challenges Australia's preconceived ideas through the use of literary techniques and audience positioning. The techniques that are used, although subtle, allow Danalis to convey emotion, context, point of view, mood and atmosphere, truths and misconceptions that are commonly conceived throughout white Australian society. This is evident within Danalis' text when he positions the audience to empathise with Jason after his discovery of the local newspaper, "When the story came into the Australian newsroom, the editor must have grabbed the first photograph of a didgeridoo player he could lay his lazy hands on" (Danalis, 2009, 184). Evidently, Danalis utilises this event to invite the audience to consider the injustices and disrespect that the white Australian society has towards the indigenous Australians. Additionally, Danalis communicates to the reader the situational empathy towards Jason as he became the victim of a careless act of disrespect. This situation also allows Danalis to express and intertwine a truth regarding Indigenous Australians in which he explicitly communicated with the reader the preconceived ideas of Indigenous Australians. This action made on behalf of the newspaper editor, effectively damaged the reputation of Indigenous Australians as it created a manipulated reality in which didgeridoo was portrayed as a threat instead of a musical instrument. Thus, it is clear the Authorship in the novel, and the selection of subject matter such as this event characterises the preconceived teachings and misconceptions that are commonly associated within White Australian society. This enables the author to create a platform which both educates the reader on the realities and truths of the Indigenous race but also makes them feel sympathetic towards the past and present treatment of their communities, traditions and people.
Within current white Australian society, the stereotyping of Indigenous Australians has led to racial profiling within communities, social events and shopping centres. A direct example of this would be an event which happened on the third month of twenty eight-teen. Within a Myer store, an Indigenous Australian school boy, Mr Garlett and his father were shopping when Mr Garlett was spotted and racially profiled by a manager in which Mr Garlett was seen standing alone in a dressing room. The manager saw this and immediately called staff and security to swarm the dressing room. Unknowingly, Mr. Garlett was trying on shirts and accessories and was waiting for the staff member to return with another size shirt. According to ABC, the sales assistant of Mr. Garlett commented saying, "The other staff looked confused and embarrassed when they saw myself accompany Mr. Garlett to the counter to pay more than $200 for the shirt and accessories." (Powell, 2018). These type of events are not anything new according to Mr. Garlett's father saying, "many of his Aboriginal friends and family have shared similar experiences. (Powell,2018). These preconceived notions of Indeciduous Australians lead to profiling like Mr. Garlett's, misunderstandings and altercations in which the Indigenous Australian is misjudged because of racial stereotypes. The writer of this article uses factual and honest language to position the reader to fell empathetical towards Mr. Garlett and his farther. The article also promotes to point of view of an Indigenous perspective instead of using the White Australian perspective. The author uses such techniques to position the reader so that his messaged can be conveyed without any misconceptions or confusion. The preconceived notions of Indigenous Australians cause damage within communities such as it has for Mr. Garlett. Although he has forgiven them, the racial profiling will always remain.
Photography of Indigenous Australians can be used to convey crucial messages as well as carry erroneous messages in hope that the preconceived ideas can either be challenged or fortified. A photograph of Gary Foley, who was a prominent figure within the Indigenous community, begin to surface in which Gary is seen holding a sign with the caption, "Pardon me for being born into a nation of RACISTS." (Appendix 3) This photo of Foley is important as it allows the viewer to understand the attitudes and societal rules that were prominent in which the photo was taken. The message of the sign, although important, is not the only aspect of photo to be taken into consideration. The chain that is present in front of Foley and the dirty ground that Foley was sitting on could be representative of what the White Australian perspectives were towards Indigenous Australians. Foley himself clearly displays the class divide between White Australians and Indigenous Australians as Foley's hair is long and untamed and within the Aboriginal rights movement, it was typical of a White Australian to have a clean cut haircut. The message conveyed through the sign itself directly targets the wider audience from just White Australians. The message was meant to create awareness for how the Indigenous Australians have been treated compared to their counterpart, the White Australians. The photographer was trying to evoke emotion form the audience in which would the photo itself is very honest and the topic of the photo was unpopular at the time. The photographer directly chose to have Foley alone within this photo because it creates a larger impact on its audience. Photography like the photo of Foley gives the author leverage to persuade an audience to see their perspective and be very confronting overall giving the media a larger impact.
Poems are specifically written to engage the audience by creating a vivid image so that they can convey a direct message. The poem ‘All One Race’ (Appendix 4) written by Oodgeroo Noonucaal is a short two verse poem, with rhyming couplets that uses the poetic devices of repetition, contextuality and rhetorical questions to continuously remind the audience of the message. The theme that Noonucaal is trying to convey to the reader is one that says we are all the same, one family of humans, no matter our skin colour. This is evident when Noonucaal says ‘All one family’ and ‘I’m international’ on lines 5 and 9 of the first stanza and lines 4 and 7 of the finial stanza. Noonucaal uses the element of contextualisation within her poem to position the reader to not only think of the racism issues that are facing Indigenous Australians but also that are facing people globally. Noonucaal does this by dividing both the first and second stanza into genders (first stanza female, second stanza male) as she makes references to other languages from around the world creating a global feeling, leading to a deeper overall meaning. This contextualisation directly ties in with appendix 3 as it relates closely to the theme. Noonucaal cleverly used repetition within her poem with the words “I’m international” and “all one family” to constantly remind the reader and position them so that they know that no matter our skin colour or ethnicity, we are all the one race. The devices used within this poem allows Noonucaal to position her reader to not only see racism within Australia but on a global scale as well.
Audience positioning is important to the authors of texts as it is the positioning that gets their main message conveyed to their audience. Though the four stimuli that was analysed was different, we can see the authors using direct techniques of imagery (appendix 3), confronting words (appendix 2+4) and harsh realities (appendix 1) to position the audience to feel outrage at the way Aboriginal people are stereotypically displayed within media outlets and other texts. Indirect techniques such as tone, symbolism and mood enabled the authors to shape and mould their audiences to see what they were saying through their point of view. Overall, these authors used their texts to position their audiences